negative people

We all too often think that we should protect ourselves from the possibility of getting hurt. Most of us have been hurt in the past and a common reaction to the pain of being hurt by someone else is to close off our hearts.

We mistakenly think that closing our hearts and guarding our feelings protect us from further pain. We mistakenly think it strengthens us and gives us control over what happens to us.

The problem is the opposite happens.

A closed heart = a closed life

When you close your heart, you close yourself off not only from the world, but also from yourself. A closed heart can leave life devoid of joy, love and compassion, and possibilities. It becomes a fearful heart. It actually attracts negative situations and people, it does not avert them.

There are, of course, certain people (and situations) you should protect yourself from, but not everyone you meet. A closed heart takes a lot of (negative) energy to maintain. It’s draining. You’re constantly on guard waiting trouble, waiting for someone to try to step on your toes. Your life becomes dictated by painful past events to the detriment of your present moments.

Plus a closed heart means you treat yourself with less love, trust and compassion too. You end up being incredibly hard on yourself.

A closed heart = negative energy

A closed heart has also soaked up the bad energy from the memories you replay over and over about the betrayal or rejection or pain inflicted upon you. You literally lock that pain inside your heart, thinking you are protecting yourself when really you are hurting yourself.

The only way to solve that problem – and let go of your pain – is to open your heart.

Do you sometimes or often feel like a victim in your life? Well, you if you do, you are certainly not alone.

Feeling like a victim is all to do with our state of mind – our mentality. We think of ourselves as victims, and our thoughts become our feelings and our actions.

When you have a victim mentality you feel as though you cannot succeed no matter how hard you try and that everything and everyone is against you. Feeling like this can be very frustrating as it keeps you stuck.

You feel trapped and helpless and believe you have no control over your life. Your thinking patterns are likely to be negative and very pessimistic. There is also a strong chance that self-pity and sadness are familiar features of your life.

The “benefits” of having a victim mindset

Believe it or not, having a victim mindset is attractive to some people because they believe it holds several benefits, such as:

Are you doing what you love to do in life? Are you doing what makes your heart sing and causes time to stand still because you’re caught up in your bliss? Do you wake up every day feeling blessed that you are living your dream?

Or have you, like Jude in My Lover’s Keeper pushed your dream, your bliss, aside and got a “proper job”?

“I had extravagant, secret dreams of writing novels about far-flung places. In the meantime, I polished my new office shoes and ironed my white blouses.”

You’ve probably at some point, like most people who harbour creative pursuits and ambitions, been told that your dream was impractical, pie-in-the-sky and doomed to failure. Fear is drummed into you: How can you pay the bills from painting pictures or writing stories? Only very lucky or insanely talented people make it big. The rest – the triers and the pitiable dreamers, well, they wind up sitting in a crappy apartment somewhere, broke and in denial. Failures with a capital, neon-lit “F”.

If you listen long and hard enough the opinions of other people, especially those who’ve given up on their own dreams or never had them in the first place, can signal the kiss of death to pursuing what you love.